


Absinthe and Adderall

by punkrockloser



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Excessive Drinking, Female Hange Zoë, German Eren Yeager, Includes Deutsch | German, M/M, Medication, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-17 10:44:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13075221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockloser/pseuds/punkrockloser
Summary: His fiance left him standing at the altar, ignored everyone's attempts at trying to contact him, and made him look a fool in front of each and every one of their guests. The only saving grace is the flight and hotel already booked for the honeymoon trip, which he sure as hell isn't letting go to waste.Levi has six weeks in Berlin to spend drowning his sorrows in alcohol, but after only three days are his plans thwarted by a bartender too nosy and stubborn to deal with.





	1. To Last A Lifetime

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I didn't have to make Erwin such an asshole in this fic, but honestly trying to pair Levi up with another character (or worse, an OC) just for this wasn't going to work out.
> 
> Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this start

Everything was perfect.

The large flower stands were set against the walls and on each side of the wooden doors, the chandeliers were hung from the vaulted ceiling and spread crystallized light throughout the room, every end seat had a decorative white ribbon tied to the outside arm in an embellishment to the aisle, and their subtly confrontational families that hardly ever had the chance to interact with each other were actually _mingling._  Levi strode along the edges of the large main room of the church Erwin had insisted on having the ceremony in, trying and ultimately failing to hide his small, pleased smile with the way the morning was panning out.

He hadn’t wanted to hold the wedding in any officialized building when they had first started planning, rather entertaining the better idea of having it at his mother’s house with only a few immediate family members and their closest friends present. Levi had never been one for theatrics, and Erwin’s constant argument of inviting more than enough guests to fill the entire church hall had been a bit disconcerting as well as just plain annoying, but in the end he supposed that, since he would definitely be having the final say in everything else for the ceremony, he’d let Erwin decide that one detail.

“Levi! Oh honey, everything looks amazing!” the squalling voice of his great aunt met his ears, and he paused mid-stride as she wound her way through groups of other guests to meet him. He didn’t deign to roll his eyes or waste breath letting out an exasperated sigh as the aging woman with hair that was too obviously dyed and hadn’t seen him in more than a decade—if not two—wrapped a thin arm around his neck in a light and uncomfortable hug, though he very much wanted to.

“Hello, Aunt Huette,” Levi greeted dryly, knowing that she probably would not remember how this conversation went, if the clearly refilled wine glass and the bright flush in her cheeks were anything to go by. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

She waved him off, her bony hand and sharp red nails coming too close to his face with the motion. “Of course, my dear! I wouldn’t miss it for the world! You only get one of these, you know.”

Her voice was way too loud, and Levi could only cringe internally as a few heads turned in interest.

“Yes, yes, I know. One wedding to last me a lifetime,” he agreed pacifically, having to force his smile and really just wanting to bypass this nettlesome conversation that was just a waste of what little time he had left. “But I must get back to my room now, make a few last-minute touches. You find a seat soon, the ceremony should be starting in about an hour,” he advised, hoping to give her a push in the right direction.

“Oh, wonderful! It was lovely seeing you after so long!” Huette gave him another, stronger hug and turned to settle into one of the many unfolded white chairs not far from where she had been standing, sipping at her wine all the while.

Levi took a breath and continued making his way through the large crowds, his Oxfords mutely clacking with each step on the marble floor. With him having to constantly stop every so often to exchange forced and expected pleasant conversations not unlike the one with his great aunt with many other awaiting guests, nearly forty minutes passed by in a slow crawl before he was finally able to exit out the side doors and down the hall to the other rooms.

Hanji and Eld were camped out in his small prepping room when he opened the door, their obviously eager discussion coming to a halt at his entrance. Levi shook his head and shot them each a disparaging look. “Oh, what, you can talk about me behind my back, but not in front of me? How boring,” he mulled as he shut the thick wooden door behind him.

“It’s just so exciting!” Hanji exclaimed, pushing off from where she had been leaning back against the vanity—the largest piece of furniture in the room save the couch that was pushed against the opposite wall—to throw her arms around his neck.

There were already too many hugs he’d had to deal with, and it pained Levi to know that he was far from enduring the worst of it. He was already dreading the mandatory and inescapable rounds of pictures he and Erwin would have to go through after the ceremony, when all the guests would undoubtedly end their short photoshoots with an embrace for each of them and more kind and congratulatory words. The gesture was understandable, even slightly appreciated, but completely unnecessary.

He pushed the brunette off his shoulders with a grimace, the silver tulle of her dress shuffling as she backed up and took a seat next to Eld. “What, exactly, is so exciting you felt the need to jump me?” Levi asked while smoothing out the shoulders and lapels of his suit jacket.

“Marriage, Levi,” Eld prodded from his seat on the plush navy couch. “Specifically yours. Or are you getting cold feet already?” The blond’s tone was light and teasing, but there was an undercurrent of sincere concern that reminded Levi of where he was.

He was about to get married to his boyfriend of eight years, after spending the last five jumping between apprehension, anger, and depression over if the relationship was actually going anywhere. Erwin had made it clear from the beginning that he was not big on marriage, and, at the time, Levi hadn’t been even slightly bothered by the news. He was young and right out of university, and the thought of being with one person for the rest of his life was incredibly daunting. But during the progressing relationship with the man he’d fallen helplessly in love with, his thoughts on the matter changed drastically, and he had spent agonizingly long years deciding if staying with Erwin was actually worth his time if he wasn’t going to get what he wanted out of their relationship. Yet, in the week before he had been planning on discussing his misgivings, Erwin had asked him plainly, without flair, if he wanted to marry him. Levi had been extremely relieved, if not a bit concerned with the man’s sudden change of mind on the subject, but he was willing to hope.

“Definitely not,” he scoffed, turning toward the vanity no longer blocked by an over-excited brunette and throwing his tie around his neck to complete the tux. He’d spent a couple hours on YouTube watching clips on how to tie a bowtie just for this occasion, feeling it too immature to use one of those pre-tied clip-ons he knew Erwin himself was going for. Yet, watching a video many times over does not translate to actually _learning_ anything, and he heard his two friends choke on their laughter while he continued to fiddle with the damn silken accessory.

Finally meeting their amused faces in the mirror of the vanity, Levi gritted out, “This stays between us.” He had messed up somewhere along the line, and slowed his movements the second time around, taking care to remember _exactly_ where this end folded and that end looped.

“You should have just asked Mike to help you out with that,” Eld commented off-handedly, swallowing his laughter and smoothing a hand down the front of his own, charcoal gray suit all the groomsmen wore, his four-in-hand tie absolutely perfect.

Levi hummed, ignoring the weak jab at his ability to tie a knot and instead focusing on the more important part of Eld’s sentence. “Where is Mike? I haven’t seen him in a while,” he said, as if he could really have been paying attention to where the man had run off to when he was busy with making small talk with all his family and friends and even his _neighbors_ for fuck’s sake, as if Levi needed Craig and Stacia and their three children from apartment 4B to watch him get married to someone they’d hardly even met—being that Erwin deemed his place too small to visit frequently and they hadn’t been one of those couples that felt the need to move in together even after all the years they’d been in a relationship.

Hanji made an affirmative noise and said, “Yeah, he went to go check on Erwin. Told us he got a text from him and for us to wait here while he handled some stuff.” Her tone was so nonchalant that it took Levi a second to process her words, but when he did, his blood ran cold.

His fingers stilled where he was finally finishing up the knot correctly, a grim feeling in the pit of his stomach. Granted, ‘some stuff’ could be absolutely nothing at all and he shouldn’t immediately jump to the worst conclusion as he was prone to do; and as Erwin’s best man, Mike definitely _should_ handle ‘some stuff’ whenever it should come up, but Hanji’s concise explanation and Erwin’s previous thoughts on marriage that he’s had for the eight or nine years Levi’s known him didn’t exactly leave him unconcerned for whatever could potentially be happening. Eld’s comment on cold feet jumped to the front of his mind without his permission, and the sick feeling in his stomach persisted.

“Levi?” Hanji pressed, her expression dropping to one of concern at the abrupt change in the dark-haired man’s behavior.

“Did he say what he was going to...handle?” Levi asked, not expecting to find his voice even and his tone at its standard level of insouciance.

The two each shook their heads, and Levi turned to meet their gazes without the use of the mirror, leaning back to rest against the edge of the vanity and cross his arms over his chest. It wasn’t either of their faults, of course not, but he still felt a curling sense of dread and frustration rise from the pit of his chest at the information Hanji had announced. He furrowed his eyebrows and clenched his jaw.

“I’m gonna go find him, then. See what’s up,” he said, beginning to make his way to the door in order to check for himself that everything was still good to go. Erwin really shouldn’t have any problem with anything before the ceremony—he was a smart guy, any small issue could be handled by himself, he shouldn’t need Mike unless something terrible, unforeseen, or critically major was taking place.

“Levi, no, just wait here,” Hanji insisted, reaching out for his arm from her place at the end of the couch and stopping him before he could get close to the door. He had half a mind to yank his arm out of her grasp, but from both not wanting to risk tearing his sleeve and a nagging little thought in the back of his mind that ordered him to listen to her, he stilled.

Levi turned to face his two wedding party members on the couch, his earlier good mood turned sour with one little comment from Hanji. Naturally.

“I need to make sure everything is still running smoothly. Both of you know how he was before, what if…?” he trailed off, not wanting to finish the weighted question aloud. His own silence was enough to spark understanding in his friends’ eyes.

Eld stood up. “Take a deep breath, Levi,” he said, stepping closer and resting his hands on Levi’s shoulders in a placating manner.

“Oh don’t pull that shit with me, Eld,” Levi snapped, but it went unnoticed.

“Everything’s fine, I’m sure it’s nothing—” the young groomsman tried to continue in his irritatingly soothing tone, but was cut off by the door bursting open and Mike hurriedly stepping into the small room.

“Problem!” Mike shouted before catching Levi’s eye and immediately snapping his mouth shut, cutting off whatever else he was about to say. He threw both Hanji and Eld pleading glances, and Levi felt Eld’s hands finally slip off his shoulders. It didn’t seem like Mike was expecting the groom to actually be in his own room, and however amusing that would have been under different circumstances, this definitely wasn’t the time.

“What is it?” Levi snapped, the sudden nausea and worry that bubbled against his ribs inflicting his tone with irritation and leading him to react with a desperate impatience. “What happened with Erwin?”

“I, well,” Mike began, then closed the door and cleared his throat, stalling for as long as he dared. “Please don’t freak out.”

“That really doesn’t help.”

Mike sighed and ran a shaking hand through his hair in an uncharacteristic motion. He was on edge, and if Levi wasn’t tensing up in preparation of the worst, he would have stopped to ask if the man was alright. Mike paused for only a few seconds, though, before completely destroying Levi.

“Erwin left.”

There was a long and highly uncomfortable silence after the announcement, broken only by Hanji’s soft gasp and her hands flying up to cover her mouth while Eld merely eyed Levi warily. Mike practically exuded guilt.

“He left,” Levi repeated, and at Mike’s tentative affirmation, merely nodded to himself. “Okay.”

He was unnaturally calm, but could feel his heart begin to slowly tear apart at the seams he had worked so hard to sew back up after years of emotional torture. On one hand, Levi was not at all surprised by Mike’s news, pessimistically expecting at the time of Erwin’s proposal that this happiness wouldn’t have lasted long. Levi consistently harbored a despairing thought in the very back of his mind that it was used as a sly ploy in getting him to stay in their relationship, for Erwin had always been irritatingly accurate in his readings on the dark-haired man’s emotions. Yet, on the other hand, he was shocked beyond repair. How could Erwin do this to him? To _them?_  How—?

“Okay?!” Hanji yelled, a sudden blaze of rage behind her hazel eyes. She rounded on Mike. “Where the hell is he? I’m giving him a piece of my mind! And my foot right up his ass!” In any other situation, they would have been amused and entertained at the eccentric woman’s threats, but the horrible silence just continued once she had stormed off in a futile search of Levi’s fiancé.

When the quiet became too much, and he’d had enough of the pitying looks from the two who had chosen to stay, Levi asked, “Did he tell you why he left? Or where he was going?” He heard the panic begin to seep into his words, and willed it away. He was okay, everything was fine, this was all just a misunderstanding. Erwin didn’t really leave.

Mike pressed his lips into a thin line. “He told me he couldn’t go through with it, and that he couldn’t do this to you. I, uh, don’t know what he was talking about, but he told me you would understand? I don’t know where he went.” He paused. “I’m very sorry, Levi.”

" _I_ _would understand,_ "  Levi mockingly repeated in a light, hurt laugh, finally moving from the shock of the situation to practically rip the tie from its place against the base of his throat. The tie that he had exerted so much energy over just to make it perfect, because why on earth would it not be? This was supposed to be the day of their dreams, both his _and_ Erwin’s, despite whatever doubts the man had had before—and he’d asked! Erwin had asked to marry him! _What_ did he think was going to happen, that Levi would try and have a talk with him and question if this was really what the blond man wanted, because he had a history of a severe dislike for the entire concept of marriage? If Levi was a smarter man, he would have done just that. But he hadn’t, and now they were here, and every little detail needed to be flawless; Levi made sure of it, from the way he was dressed to the expensive decor to the limitless catering and bar service to all the _guests_ —

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” he asked bluntly, cutting off his own thoughts before they got way too out of hand and he’d need to find something to busy him.

Eld and Mike exchanged equally uncertain glances, but before either of them could say anything, Levi continued, his tone rising in volume the more heated he became.

“What am I supposed to tell everyone? Just grab a mic and simply announce it to the entire hall? Or should I just stand up at the altar and wait it out, acting like I knew nothing and hope he realizes how ridiculous he’s acting and comes back to finish this? But fuck, that really isn’t likely to happen considering how close the ceremony is to starting, and then, _then,_  I’d just get more of these shitty pitying looks from everyone, and they’ll try to make it better on me, and nothing will _work,_  and—” He took a deep, ragged breath, and blinked back the tears threatening to spill. “Fuck. But that’s the better option. I’m not fucking announcing that shit like a goddamn salesman. _Fuck._ "

He swiped his phone from the counter of the vanity and dialed Erwin’s number, ignoring Eld’s attempts of advising him not to and Mike’s explanation that his fiancé probably turned his phone off. He must have, too, as the call went straight to voicemail. Levi hardly cared, redialing again, and again, and again. In less than two minutes he had already made twenty-six consecutive calls to the coward, and his anger was unbridled.

“That piece of shit!” he shouted and stuffed his phone into the pocket of his slacks to keep himself from throwing it across the room just as Hanji opened the door, the groomswoman still fuming.

“He’s gone,” she said. “He’s not here, I can’t find him.”

“I tried to tell you,” Mike said despairingly, looking down to his own shoes once the words left his lips to avoid Hanji’s annoyed glare.

“Well? What are we going to do, then? What is _Levi_ going to do? Hm?” she fired off the same questions running through Levi’s own mind, and all he could do was shake his head in utter denial as the three of them discussed the circumstances and talked over each other in a maddening cacophony of his absolute worst nightmare.

This wasn’t fucking happening. He couldn’t even begin to include himself in anything that was going on around him as all he felt was a dreadful numbness sprouting from the center of his chest and pooling out until he couldn’t quite feel his toes, even when he curled and flexed them in an attempt to prove his own reality.

The door opened, silencing the three abruptly, and Levi looked up from the tie in his hands to find the wedding planner, Carol, poking her head through the doorway with a wide smile plastered on her face.

“Levi! We’re about to start the ceremony!” she enthused, oblivious to the turmoil weighing down the small room. “You can go ahead and stand up at the altar now and I’ll try and get things up and running in about five minutes, but Mike? Have you seen Erwin anywhere? I can’t seem to find him, and he really should have been ready a while ago.”

Mike didn’t answer right away, turning to shoot Levi a searching look over his shoulder in a question of how he should answer. Levi met the question in the bearded man’s eyes with an almost imperceptible shake of his head, heart twinging painfully as he did so.

“No, ma’am, last I saw he was in his prep room,” Mike replied honestly, his jaw clenching when Hanji scoffed and Eld sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

Their planner raised an amused eyebrow at the exchange, the smile still playing at the edges of her red-painted lips. “Okay. Well, I’ll find him.” She seemed to catch on to Levi’s less-than-joyful mood, and waved an assuaging hand at him. “Oh Levi, honey, don’t worry. He’s probably just getting some fresh air. You know how it is!”

Levi couldn’t force any answer other than a low grunt to Carol’s playful comments, and she was out the door the next moment, leaving it open for them to take the initiative and begin the ceremony.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Eld piped up once the silence had permeated the space once again. “Just stand up there?”

“You _can’t._  Call it off! You don’t deserve to go through that!” Hanji said, and Levi knew she was just looking out for him, as the wonderful best man he knew she’d be, but he couldn’t listen to her advice. He had made up his mind.

“Come on, everyone,” he murmured, making his way to the hall and leaving the wrinkled tie clenched in his fist. “Didn’t you hear miss happy-go-lucky? The ceremony is about to start.”

—

Levi stood up at that damn altar for fifteen minutes, the obnoxiously flowered wedding arch creating an empty space beside him, its mere presence only highlighting the fact that things were so very _wrong,_  before most of their guests had caught on to their current predicament. And, of course, once that happened he couldn’t even stare out into the audience for too long for fear of having to meet those agonizingly sympathetic gazes.

His shoulders tensed when the whisperings started up, beginning in the back left-hand corner and slowly making their way to the front of the grand hall, and Levi could only wait in growing anxiety as his mother, in the very front row with confusion marring her features, turned around to listen to the report that would surely end with her fuming.

And he was not disappointed.

“Marla!” she called suddenly, standing up sharply and glaring over at Erwin’s own mother. Her poised and elegant figure accented by a regal navy satin dress and expensive silver jewelry naturally drew the attention of their guests to her, and she was an intimidating adversary. “Where is your son?”

The sandy-haired woman had the decency to duck her head in shame. “Kuchel, _please,_ " she hissed, casting a glance over her shoulder at all the guests who had taken to observing the exchange with expectant interest. “How would I know? He doesn’t tell me anything, I thought—” She broke off with a harsh intake of breath, and Levi could tell she was tearing up with the way the light from the chandeliers he so carefully picked out caught in her misty blue eyes.

Twenty minutes. Both mothers politely excused themselves to call Levi’s absent fiancé and unsurprisingly came back with no answer on either of their ends.

Twenty-five minutes. Mike and Hanji made their way through the crowd of seated guests in order to try and calm the growing concern with false promises.

Thirty minutes. Their minister went out back to smoke, and Levi realized the moment his shoes left the platform that this wedding had surely and completely been uprooted.

Forty-five minutes. Most of the guests had lost their respectful silence or quiet murmuring to talk amongst themselves, and Levi really couldn’t blame them.

After nearly an hour up there alone, his normally cool and collected demeanor had been broken by him constantly pulling at his collar in an anxious tic and wrapping the loose tie around his fist and clenching his fingers together to keep himself from lashing out.

After nearly an hour, Carol finally called for a suspension. Their guests weren’t even _surprised,_  and Levi was off the platform and locking the door of his prep room behind him before anyone could try and make pitiful conversation with the groom who was left at the altar.

He didn’t know how long he sat in there by himself with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, the comfortable couch doing absolutely nothing to appease him. He didn’t cry, didn’t think it was even worth crying over at this point, but his chest was tight and his breaths were ragged and his fingers were carding through his hair and mussing it up in the most unpleasant of ways. Fuck Erwin. He knew he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up, and look at where that left him. Forgotten, disrespected, and ashamed.

The jiggling of the doorknob and his mother’s soothing voice coming through the wood jolted him out of his self-deprecating thoughts and forced him to realize just how childish he was behaving about the whole affair, locking himself away from prying eyes as if isolating himself was going to do any good.

He stood from the couch and moved to open the door, finding Kuchel accompanied by Hanji, Mike, and the rest of their disbanded wedding party. Neither Marla nor her current boyfriend were in sight, but he was thankful for it.

“I’m fine,” Levi said before any of the others could open their mouths, but they each piled into the room nevertheless, knowing that despite his prickly exterior, the whole situation was the tipping point for both his relationship with Erwin and his internalized feelings on the eight-year-long matter, and he was not dealing with them well.

Yet they didn’t say anything. They were all just _looking_ at him with guarded expressions, giving him as much of a wide berth as they could in the tiny area, and Levi bit the insides of his cheeks as he met each of their stares. He tried to hold his composure, but he could feel the emotions welling up inside of him and threatening to spill out. He still couldn’t believe it. With every second that passed, the only thing he could ask for was that he would wake up from this horrible nightmare back in his apartment and read the cheesy text Erwin had sent him before picking him up and heading to the church, but he knew better than to believe in such a fairytale.

When he glanced down and caught the flash of the silver band around his own finger, his breath finally hitched and he felt the tears he’d struggled to keep down fall against his face. His mother stepped forward with a whispered, “Oh, my poor baby,” and held him in her warm and reassuring embrace. “He doesn’t deserve you,” she mumbled against his ear, and Levi dipped his head into her shoulder to avoid making any more eye contact with the others in the room and to wipe away his traitorous tears. This was the only hug he would dare accept.

“Levi.”

He raised his head at his name, and Hanji continued, asking, “Is there anything we can do for you?”

Levi almost shook his head, not wanting to deal with any of the responsibilities he knew he had for cleaning this place up and paying all the charges, but instead nodded jerkily as he slipped out of Kuchel’s hold. “Please, take as much of the food as you can. Tell the other guests as well. We’ve already paid for it, I don’t want anything to have to go to waste,” he explained morosely, his anger and adrenaline fading quickly. All he felt now was hollow.

Nearly half of the guests had already emptied out and left the church by the time Levi and company re-entered the main hall, but the ones that remained trained their focus directly on him as soon as they realized he was standing up on the platform again, a mic in hand.

After the excruciating hour waiting pathetically alone, Levi regretted his decision of leaving the speech until now, realizing if he had just sucked up his pride and gone through with it in the first place, he wouldn’t have had to be doing it _now_.

“Hello, everyone,” he started, then coughed into the crook of his elbow to relieve some of the phlegm that had collected there thanks to his silent weeping before beginning his explanation. “Even though we will no longer be holding the ceremony or the following reception, please help yourself to the catering and bar service we have provided. If you just make your way out these side doors right here,” he gestured to the set of doors opposite the ones holding the prepping rooms, “and across the courtyard, there are tables and plates set up for everyone in the next room. Thank you.”

He watched the guests file out the doors and turned to give Kuchel the mic before walking the opposite direction of the crowd and out the front doors of the church. He ignored his mother’s and a handful of his friends’ calls in favor of marching right down the stone steps and around the side of the flagstone building, falling back against the cold wall once he made it to the shade. He took a few deep breaths—in desperate need of some fresh air—and despite the freezing temperatures of winter and his breath fogging out in front of him, the wind still felt much nicer than the overwhelming stuffiness of the rooms inside.

When his phone vibrated deep in the pocket of his slacks, Levi would deny how quickly he fumbled with it to try and see if it was a message or a call from Erwin. Regardless of the fact that he was still infuriated with the man, there was no countering that he would immediately try and rectify the damages, wanting so bad for this to just be a misunderstanding and not a conscious decision on Erwin’s part to make Levi’s life one depressing year after another.

It was merely an email, and he was halfway through just deleting the whole thing—as he normally only received spam messages he never entertained anyway—before reading the subject line and feeling his stomach drop right out of his ass.

**Update: Flight Reminder**

Right. He and Erwin had booked a flight right out of JFK that was taking off in less than six hours for the fucking honeymoon—he had all his bags packed and ready to go back at his apartment—and it must have been just the absolute fuckery that was his morning that he had forgotten about the trip at all.

There was no way he could try and cancel the flight this late and expect any compensation other than a free voucher for some airport restaurant or convenience store that he would never use, but what the hell was he supposed to do? Take the trip by himself? That was depressing, and he’d had enough of that shit in the past two hours to last him a lifetime. Invite someone else to take the trip with him? Like anyone would want to accompany some sad, lonely, left-at-the-altar groom. Give them to someone else to enjoy? Absolutely not. They were way too expensive for that, and he wasn’t feeling very generous at the moment.

Shaking his head and deciding he’d figure the flight business out later, he stuffed his phone once more into his pocket and made his way back to the front of the church. Standing at the bottom of the intricate marble staircase and gazing up at the large doors and stained-glass windows of the gorgeous building that he had once believed would hold the start of the rest of his life, his fingers fiddled with the ring of his opposite hand mindlessly.

Levi hummed lowly in the back of his throat, debating whether or not to head back inside. He wasn’t feeling up to entertaining the masses with his recent sob story, and if he merely contacted their wedding planner later that day he could take care of their expenses over the phone, but he couldn’t just leave without saying goodbye to his mother.

_[Levi:] I’m going home. Tell the others I said bye, but to not try and follow me._

He didn’t wait for Kuchel’s response, heading toward the parking lot across the church for the car they were supposed to leave in together. Erwin had obviously taken his SUV, the one he had picked Levi up and arrived in, and Levi inwardly groaned as he realized he’d be driving down the neighborhood with _Just Married!_ written in white window paint on the back, alone in the front seat. As if he needed anyone else, let alone complete strangers, to know of his embarrassment.

Levi was merely grateful, once he pulled into his apartment complex, that the two of them hadn’t decided to move in together until after the marriage. The once annoying old-fashioned ideals of Erwin’s mother now saved him from any awkward encounters he could have endured at that moment. He didn’t have to come home and be reminded of their failed marriage with all of the blond’s clothes or furniture or miscellaneous items surrounding him. Although, there was a stack of books that Erwin left the last time he was over sitting at the edge of his coffee table, but Levi ignored it as best he could.

The buzz of his phone drew his attention to the device, and he still expected it to be Erwin.

_[Mama:] I am so sorry honey. Everyone here is so appalled by his behavior. Know that we all love you so so much, and we are here if you need anything. Anything at all_

He felt the ghost of a smile pull at the edges of his lips in gratitude before his mind caught up to him and he remembered the flight he was supposed to be getting on that evening, the only thing he couldn’t call and settle right away. While he usually would figure something like this out on his own, he didn’t fully trust his decision-making skills at the moment.

_[Levi:] What about the honeymoon?_

_[Mama:] What do you mean, dear?_

_[Levi:] The Berlin flight. It leaves at 6pm._

_[Mama:] Oh. Well, I’m not so sure. Do whatever you want to do with it. It’s your trip after all_

Levi let out a displeased sigh, her answer doing nothing to help solve his predicament.

_[Levi:] Okay, thanks mama. For everything. I’ll tell you what I do with the flight._

_[Mama:] Okay honey. I love you_

He hummed and set his phone down on the kitchen counter when he passed, heading further into his apartment only after kicking off his dress shoes and lining them neatly up with the rest of the pairs at the front door. In his room, he threw the wrinkled tie on the bed and stripped off the suit jacket and waistcoat, letting the suspenders hang from where they clipped onto his slacks once he slipped those off his shoulders as well.

He needed a damn shower—hot water that he could stand under for hours and let scald his skin until it was red and raw. He felt sticky and grimy and just wrong, even though he’d practically slathered himself in deodorant and doused himself in Erwin’s favorite cologne to avoid the sweat and the smell that came with anxiety.

Levi washed and rinsed himself three times over, scrubbing hard against his arms and neck and chest as if they were covered in dirt and grime that just wouldn’t come off. His entire body continued to feel unclean after probably the longest shower he’d ever taken, but at least in sweats and a loose-fitting cotton shirt he was no longer stuffy and uncomfortable.

He glanced at the silver ring he had set in the little glass holder on the bathroom counter before he’d stepped under the spray, but did nothing else to acknowledge its existence. He’d grab it later, but right now he didn’t want the reminder weighing heavily against his freshly-scrubbed skin.

A missed call notification flashed on the screen of his phone when he made his way out to the kitchen again, and his heart jolted. Yet it was merely Carol, who was sure to be asking about payment, and he quickly redialed her number just to get this over with, flushing with annoyance that he’d gotten so hopeful for it to be Erwin.

He didn’t want to think of how much was coming out of his pocket with the bill of all of this stupid ceremony shit he hadn’t even been able to fully enjoy, and even though his mother had mentioned that she would help pay for a portion of the costs, he wasn’t going to ask for charity money. _Especially_ not after the events of today.

The old grey couch he’d dragged from apartment to apartment sagged under Levi’s weight when he flopped down onto the cushions, and he sat in the uncomfortable position he’d fallen in for as long as he could before his hip started to twinge and he forced himself to sit up and straighten out his spine. Time was ticking by, the red LED’s of the clock below his television mockingly reminding him of how little time he had to make a decision.

_[Levi:] What should I do about this fucking honeymoon trip?_

He knew Hanji was having an aneurysm over both the disaster that was the failed wedding and his sudden absence right after herding everyone out to enjoy the food and drink so as to avoid any awkward conversations, so the woman’s nearly instantaneous response was awaited.

_[Hanji:] Oh my god the honeymoon trip_

_[Levi:] Yes. What do I do with the tickets?_

_[Hanji:] I say go for it_

_[Levi:] ? You’re going to have to be more specific._

_[Hanji:] Take the trip. Go to Berlin. Get out of this city and relax all by yourself, AWAY from everyone here. It’ll do you some good, help you think and make sure you don’t find Erwin and beat the shit out of him_

He couldn’t help but chuckle softly at her accurate description of exactly what he would do if— _when_ —Erwin decided he’d made a horrible mistake running out of Levi’s life and showed back up outside his apartment. And, because he was annoyingly hopeful and the thought kept nagging at him, he got up from the couch and looked through the peephole in his front door, trying very hard not to sag against the frame when the only thing he saw outside was his ‘GO AWAY’ welcome mat. As if.

Levi revisited Hanji’s messages, mind whirring.

Take the trip… It wasn’t like he didn’t have the time or the funds, as he was all set and ready to go if they had gone through with the wedding in the first place, but the thought of being alone in an entirely foreign country for six weeks was highly daunting. He’d have to exchange his dollars into euros, which was just a hassle, and have to either rely consistently on maps or the people who lived there—hoping they spoke English, of course, and not strictly German—in order to get around and see the sights, but he didn’t really want to stick out like a sore thumb and be the obvious tourist.

Also, what would he say to everyone who asked about what happened at the wedding? How could he come out and mention that, no, he and Erwin didn’t actually go through with the marriage because his would-be husband was a huge dick who didn’t think about other people’s emotions before acting for himself, but yeah he most definitely took that honeymoon trip to Berlin. Was Levi seeing anyone else, was he cheating on Erwin and that’s why he left him at the altar, was this trip an easy getaway for him and the mystery partner? No, Levi was just a sad little man who sometimes liked to listen to his insane friends and take spontaneous flights overseas in order to get over a man he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with. Easy.

God, he needed to stop overthinking shit.

_[Levi:] Say I go._

_[Levi:] What happens when I get back?_

_[Hanji:] You’ll figure that out when you DO get back. Six weeks is a long time, Levi_

He bit the side of his bottom lip in thought, then sighed out of his nose lightly. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, Hanji was right, at least in this instance. It would be good for him. Hopefully he’d be able to clear his mind and get away from surroundings that just reminded him of his fiancé—was Erwin still technically his fiancé? He did kind of just ditch the wedding, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still together, right? Just another thing to figure out—before amending this hellish occasion.

The suitcases that were, yes, already packed and waiting at the foot of his bed rubbed the opportunity in his face, and he pulled up the email again to read through the flight reminder. It was only half past one, he had plenty of time to make it.

Fuck.

_[Levi:] I love you too, mama. Also, I made up my mind. I’m going to Berlin._


	2. Berlin Welcomes You With Sunny Bartenders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a very quick update since I had most of this chapter written by the time I posted the first!
> 
> Also, this is when the German starts popping up (not much but it's definitely there), and while I do know some German and am continuing to learn the language I am nowhere near fluent, so if anything is wrong or seems too stiff please correct me!
> 
> Edit: Translations are now in the end notes

Levi was not an airport person. He was not one of those fabled individuals who actually _liked_ all the chattering and obstructive crowds, the constant waiting wherever you needed to be, or the putrid smell that seemed to emanate from everywhere at once but most likely came from the little food stores and from the people who actually bought things at those food stores. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that around halfway through waiting at the gate for his flight to arrive, he was having some serious second thoughts about his quickly-made decision.

The two large suitcases he’d brought with him had already been checked and put through to baggage, though, so it wasn’t like he could just turn around and walk out of the airport and never get on the flight. His bags would still be stuffed underneath the plane and sent overseas, taking most of his closet and all of his toiletries with them, and the hassle would be even greater to try and get them back than it would to just get over himself and take the shitty trip.

Why did he listen to Hanji?

_[Levi:] Why did I listen to you?_

_[Hanji:] How close are you to boarding?_

Her blatant change of topic urged Levi to ignore her own query just to be difficult, but the threat of harassment in the form of spamming messages was enough to sway his mind. Levi checked his boarding pass again, and then the screen with all the flights listed in neat little rows embedded in the wall next to him just to make absolutely sure.

_[Levi:] About an hour._

A mother who was too obviously frazzled and exhausted and her two children swaddled in thick winter coats even in the warmth of the airport sat down in the seats right beside him, and Levi pretended to act oblivious when the woman shot him an offended look as he moved over a couple chairs. Nope. No children on this flight. _Please_ let him have seats nowhere near them.

_[Hanji:] Have you been able to contact Erwin?_

It wasn't like he didn't like kids, because sure they were cute and stuff, and, well, why not? But these specific toddlers looked messy and bratty and were already so loud and _wouldn’t sit still_ that Levi had half a mind to tell the mother off on keeping her offspring in check. He was having an incredibly rough day—one could call it the worst day of his life—and he was _not_ going to deal with those little tykes right now. No other person seemed to be having a problem with the loud children, though, so he couldn’t even fall back on the camaraderie between strangers that came with being annoyed together, so he sat and stewed in silence.

_[Levi:] No, but I’m not trying again after I called earlier today and was just ignored._

_[Hanji:] Oh, hm. Well why not?_

He hadn’t tried again because he didn’t think it was entirely fair that he had to be the only one to reach out to the other. While maybe he was being petty and not quite dealing with the situation like he probably should have been, the thought of continuing to put himself out there and not receive any response just made his stomach turn. No, if Erwin wanted to talk to him about this, and hopefully he _would_ and they could settle this out and then Levi could come back from Berlin excited for the future and they could see this marriage through _correctly_ , then he would call Levi. Or text Levi, the man didn’t even care at this point what it was. Hell, email him if he so desired!

_[Levi:] Because I’m not pathetic._

_[Hanji:] Understandable_

His stomach growled mortifyingly loud, being that he had been too preoccupied earlier to remember to eat anything resembling a lunch, but Levi promptly decided he’d wait for the in-flight service meal on the plane than take his chances with any of the nearby restaurants or fast-food places. While airplane food had a reputation of being bland and subpar, air _port_ food was even worse, in his humble opinion. They could get away with a lot of things seeing as you couldn’t quite leave the building unless you had about four hours to spare, and he was certainly not willing to take any chances.

The mother beside him called her boys over in a nasally shout, thankfully away from where they had been creeping closer to Levi’s spot, and pulled out two burritos wrapped in soggy yellow paper that immediately tossed that horrid smell he’d been trying to avoid the entire time right under his nose. He tried to subtly glare at the trio of strangers, but when he caught the eye of the younger of the two kids, the boy gave him a wide, tortilla-stuffed smile, and Levi had to hold in his scoff.

_[Hanji:] Can I text him?_

He blinked and thought about it for half a second.

_[Levi:] Knock yourself out._

He wasn’t expecting her to get a response—if Erwin wasn’t going to communicate with his fiancé, then he definitely wasn’t going to communicate with his fiancé’s best man—so he wasn’t worried about giving her permission to do such a thing. If anything, it’d annoy the hell out of the man, and that was only a point in Levi’s favor.

“Do you want some?” a tiny voice to his right asked, and Levi tore his gaze away from his phone to witness the youngest of the toddlers he’d been trying very hard to ignore holding out a handful of candies in his direction, large brown eyes staring up at him.

“Ethan! Stop bothering that man, get over here right now!” the mother chided, even though she kept her seat and then immediately went back to the laptop on her legs. Either she could hardly care what her child got up to around strangers in an airport or she was just so certain that he would follow her directions, but Levi was still a judgemental piece of work either way. Her other son was deeply entrenched in his DS, oblivious to the world around him.

Levi gave the boy, apparently named Ethan, a disciplinary look, which wasn’t far off from his usual visage. “Listen to your mother,” he said, but the kid’s smile didn’t fade. He just held his arm out straighter, almost resting it against the top knee of Levi’s crossed legs, and didn’t retreat.

“Take one. You look sad, and candy always makes me and my brother happy!”

Levi blanched. Did he really look sad? Or was it just that this snot-nosed brat couldn’t determine a scowling face from a weeping one?

The kid still hadn’t dropped his arm or grown intimidated by Levi’s cold stare, so the dark-haired man anticlimactically shrugged and picked a piece of fun-sized chocolate from the open palm with two delicate fingers, careful not to touch the hands of a toddler he didn’t know. He could only guess how many germs were hitching a ride on the back of the small boy.

Ethan beamed and practically skipped back to his family, and Levi did his best to ignore the boy’s waiting, brown-eyed stare as he popped the small candy into his mouth and tossed the wrapper into a nearby trashcan. It was a bit too bitter for his tastes, as dark chocolate was not one of his favorites, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a _tiny_ bit better.

Damn kids.

His phone vibrated in another incoming message just as he was swiping the leftover chocolate from his teeth.

_[Hanji:] He’s not answering me :(_

_[Levi:] You know the saying taking candy from a baby?_

_[Hanji:] Yes?_

_[Levi:] I think I just did that._

_[Hanji:] ????????_

Levi spent the rest of wait texting with Hanji, and by the time the plane arrived and he was in line to board—his carry-on bag that was slung over his shoulders packed with his laptop, a novel he’d gotten as a Christmas gift two years ago, a water bottle he’d bought right after security check, and his headphones—their conversation had come full circle back to ranting about Erwin and he was very glad he had the excuse of putting his phone on airplane mode to avoid the topic. He was pissed off once again, any thought of that good-for-nothing, only-thinks-of-himself man inciting a rage that prickled and boiled underneath his fair skin.

Though, before he switched his device to the travel-safe mode and during the flight attendant’s speech of how to buckle a seatbelt, he sent out a quick text to his mother saying that he was close to departure. She replied as all mother’s do, with best wishes and prayers and _I love you_ ’s, and then one, Kuchel-specific, _Your fiancé is a coward and I hope you use this trip as a way of distancing yourself._

Levi grit his teeth together and frowned, putting the phone away without a reply so as not to be reprimanded by the stewardess that had begun travelling up and down the aisle looking for anyone out of line. He knew all of this already. He knew how much of a coward Erwin was and how terrible he was as a boyfriend the years before the proposal. Terrible only because the blond man didn’t really think about the feelings of those around him, which caused many loud, tear-filled arguments and long days afterward spent in stony silence. And then, he had the audacity to act like none of it was his fault, that he was always right in everything they fought about, and god Levi was so _stupid._ He should have seen what Erwin was trying to pull with the proposal, should have ended it right then and there, before he could get pulled into a false sense of security with their relationship. Look where being hopeful led him—alone after having eight years worth of love ripped right out of his arms in less than an hour, without having any knowledge of how to cope with the sudden loss, on a plane heading to a country he wasn’t meant to be in alone.

Fucking pitiful. Hope was an ass.

The worst part was, no matter how many times Erwin messed up and no matter how many times Levi got his heart broken, he would still want to take the blond back, even if only because it’s what he’s been used to for nearly a decade, and that drove home just how dependent Levi had become.

He needed to get his independence back, and he needed to do so before these six weeks were up and before he was on a flight back home, so that when he _did_ get back home, he wouldn’t immediately want to run back into Erwin’s arms. Perhaps being alone in a place where he didn’t have physical access to the man would curb his anxious thoughts of not knowing what to do without him, but he guessed he would just have to see.

Without wanting to rely on the traitor that was hope, Levi wished that by the end of this foreign interim, he would never need Erwin again.

The flight was an overnight one, the duration around seven and a half hours, and Levi listened half-heartedly to their pilot mention that they would be landing down in the Berlin airport at approximately 7:30 the next morning. He did the quick math to realize it was only going to be half past one in the morning on New York time.

He was going to be severely jet-lagged.

He also hoped the hotel had a 24-hour bar.

During the cab ride to the airport—because like hell he was leaving his car in one of those garages for six weeks—Levi had called the hotel they had booked a room at, Park Inn by Radisson Berlin, and tried to change rooms now that he was the only one that was to be using the suite. That didn’t pan out too well. The clerk had explained that either he stay in the room already booked and keep the price at what it was, despite not having his partner with him to pay the charges, or cancel his stay with them. There were no other rooms available at the Park Inn, and even when he tried to call other hotels around the area, none of them had openings for a six-week stay.

So, he was essentially staying in a highly expensive, highly romantic (or so the hotel had claimed) suite on the 34th floor with all the amenities he could ask for and more, and he had the entire forty square meter room to himself. While it sounded like a dream come true in definition, Levi had a pessimistic notion that, in practice, the large room would feel much more empty while he slept alone than if he was sharing it with somebody else.

After the in-flight meal—Levi had been slightly unimpressed by the menu options, but in the end settled on ordering a chicken and rice dinner with a glass of riesling—was served, he was able to get to sleep much easier than he thought he might, ducking back into the seat and falling victim to unconsciousness before the sky had even grown fully dark. He blamed it on the stress and the adrenaline-induced anger of the morning, but at least with sleeping through the flight, he wouldn’t have to listen to the mother and her two boys who—unfortunately and just Levi’s luck, really—had received seats directly behind him.

Before he closed his eyes, he caught sight of his bare left hand and realized with a sudden clench of his heart that he’d left the engagement ring back in his apartment, sitting on that bathroom counter. That tight feeling in his chest didn’t go away as he settled back into his chair and shut his eyes, and he pathetically wondered if it was a sign that he was right in wanting to move on completely this time around.

This truly was the worst day of his life.

—

Levi jerked awake at the harsh landing of the plane and squinted his eyes against the glaring light that cut through the open window he moronically had left open the night before. The overhead intercom crackled with the pilot welcoming them to Berlin and hoping they had all had a safe flight, but Levi ignored it as best he could. He’d woken up with a headache, and wouldn’t be able to get at the painkillers he’d packed until he was reunited with his suitcases; which, at the slow crawl of the passengers ahead of him exiting the craft, was going to be no time soon.

He had a steady flow of incoming messages once he took his phone off of airplane mode. One from Kuchel, four from Hanji, and one from Mike. Levi replied to each of them as he waited for the other passengers to move.

_[Mama:] Where are you staying, dear? Is the room at least worth it?_

_[Levi:] Park Inn by Radisson Berlin. Haven’t seen the room yet, just landed, but we did pick out one of the best suites._

_[Hanji:] You didn’t tell anyone else?_

_[Hanji:] About you taking the Berlin trip anyway?_

_[Hanji:] When are you landing?_

_[Hanji:] Levi! I’m going to sleep, text me when you land_

_[Levi:] I just landed. And no, I didn’t think I needed to tell anyone else._

_[Mike:] I didn’t realize you were still taking your honeymoon trip. It’s not weird, doing it alone?_

_[Levi:] No._

Which was a blatant lie. It was incredibly off-putting knowing that he should have Erwin with him, beside him, talking to him…and he didn’t. He forced the feeling down.

Getting through the airport to baggage claim was less following the signs and more following the crowds, because while the signs didn’t actually have words on them so as to counteract the language barrier of the multitude of travelers coming through the city, the pictures they had pasted on them instead were less helpful than German itself probably would have been. Was it too hard to use relevant images, and not random designs that had little meaning in terms of direction?

Thankfully, he arrived at the claim nearly fifteen minutes before his bags came through on the conveyor belts, and the irrational fear of his luggage not making the trip overseas was put to rest as he grabbed each of the silver suitcases by their handles and hauled them off the belt. Levi was out the automated sliding doors of the airport and into the brisk winds of the greying morning outside as quick as he could be, not even stopping to take the painkillers he so needed, and he had to maneuver around families at a standstill as he kept an eye out for any bright yellow vehicles.

Which turned out to be the wrong thing to do, because apparently Berlin taxis were white.

Levi was very close to forgoing riding in a taxi altogether and trying to find a bus or something, though, when, after realizing the cabbie didn’t speak English and Levi himself definitely didn’t know any German—a bold decision seeing as he was to spend more than a month in the country—he had been sitting in the employed car for over a minute and they still hadn’t gone anywhere.

In the end, he exasperatedly shoved his phone in the cabbie’s face with google translate up on the screen and didn’t return the large smile the older man gave him as they drove away from the airport.

His headache just got worse.

The twenty minute drive through the city was pleasant enough, as his driver seemed to understand Levi’s unspoken request for silence and only played very faint instrumental music faded nearly all the way to the front of the car, and once they’d stopped outside his hotel and Levi paid with the exchanged euros he’d received from the Travelex at the airport and took his bags from the trunk, he was able to take a good look at the building he’d be staying in.

It was fucking huge.

At _least_ forty stories, glass walls all the way up to the top, with _Park Inn_ glaring down from the height of the building. It was very likely to be the largest, most over-the-top structure in the area as far as Levi could tell.

He quite liked it.

The lobby was grandiose as well, stretching off to the side of the front doors in a large seating room, and he lugged his suitcases through the glass front doors and across circular-patterned rugs much further than should be necessary just to reach the rounded receptionist desk.

Since Levi had called ahead of time, the desk clerk was not surprised by the slight change in stay, and he was able to get through the hassle of checking in quicker than if he had waited to do so once he’d landed. He thanked his foresight immensely.

The elevator ride up to his room was a gruelling time-waster, because for _some reason_ they had wanted to stay up on the 34th floor and not something a little more reasonable like the fifth or sixth. Yet, as Erwin had repeatedly told him, “The nicer suites are on the upper floors!”

Moron.

Once Levi stepped down the hallway and keycarded his way into the room, however, his mind was swayed.

In addition to the sizable area of the room, uncurtained windows stretched out along the entire back wall, letting in immeasurable amounts of natural light and painting out the city beneath him all the way to the horizon. Levi set his suitcases down next to the double bed and stepped closer to the glass panes, leaning forward to stare out at the grey skies and down to the ants of the crowds and the traffic below. It was quiet, and for that he was grateful.

He popped a few aspirin tablets to cure the dull migraine beating against his skull, took a shower much shorter than the one yesterday, and sifted through the larger of the two suitcases once he dried off until he upturned jeans and a tee instead of slacks and a blazer to pull on for the day. There wasn’t much he wanted to do for the first day, knowing he had weeks ahead of him so there was no reason to jump the gun on this sightseeing business, therefore he took his time with his unpacking.

The suite had a large dresser opposite the double bed, and Levi walked around the wooden coffee table in the seating area to open its drawers and start putting away the folded articles of clothing into something more permanent than a mere suitcase.

The only other door in the room led to an adjacent bathroom that was decked out in double sinks and a large shower clearly built for two, and soon it too was marked by Levi’s stay, his multitude of toiletries and cleaning supplies lined up against the counter, in the shower, and stocking the sink cabinets.

He made his way out to the main room after testing the plumbing, and as he was storing the now empty bags underneath the raised mattress of his bed for the next month and a half, a placard on the desk next to the bed caught his eye. He picked the laminated sheet up to scan its contents in lazy curiosity.

 **Essen und Trinken** **  
** **_Food and Drink_**

There was a list of specific room service meals available along with a column spelling out the restaurants placed on the main floor of the hotel. Levi’s eyes were drawn to the _Spagos Restaurant, Bar & Lounge _entry and thanked his luck as he read the hours and found that the bar was actually open at this time of day. He still really craved a drink or two.

With an objective in mind and a resurgent want of alcohol to fuel his veins, Levi grabbed his wallet off the bedside table, shoved his phone in his back pocket, made sure he had his keycard on him, and made his way back to the elevator.

He had to wander around a bit through the lobby and main, cafeteria-esque dining room where some of the other guests of the hotel were having a late breakfast before finding the restaurant tucked away down a hall. Levi dipped inside the open doors and walked past the ‘Please Seat Yourself’ sign on top of the host stand further into the sizable restaurant.

There were a few tables filled with families and couples near the back wall of windows, yet the bar remained empty. It wasn’t surprising given the time of day, and Levi felt slightly out of place being the only one sitting up at the counter, but like hell he was skipping out on getting his alcohol fix based on what time it was. Technically it was still around three in the morning in NYC, and he hadn’t even been in Berlin a full two hours yet, so he couldn’t say he was acclimated enough to warrant _not_ drinking at nine in the morning. His logic was flawless.

Plus, if the hotel didn’t want people to order drinks so early, they wouldn’t have a bartender ready and waiting. A bartender that looked to be on his phone, the back of his brunet head turned to the restaurant and his waist leaning up against the bar, completely oblivious.

Levi slid onto one of the black leather stools closer to the end of the glass-topped bar and rapped his knuckles on the surface to get the bartender’s attention, and it was with great amusement that he watched the man startle nearly off the ground and drop his phone at the sudden interruption.

“Oh, tschuldigung, ich wollte Sie nicht ignorieren,” the bartender said hurriedly, standing at his full height—which happened to be a good half foot above Levi, though that wasn’t a difficult feat—with the phone back in his hand. Levi glanced across him when he turned fully toward the dark-haired man, cataloguing his features subconsciously. He looked to be only just old enough to work the job, his young face bearing a bright smile and polite eyes that held just a hint of fatigue behind the green, and he cocked his head to the side in expectation of a response.

Levi didn’t know _how_ to respond, as he had absolutely no idea what he had just been greeted with.

At Levi’s blank stare, the man seemed to catch on and chuckled lowly under his breath before continuing in a light German accent, “English, then?”

Thank _fuck_ he wouldn’t have to go through another round like the one with the cabbie just to order a damn drink. He nodded. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not!” the bartender reassured in a tone too chipper for Levi’s just now dwindling migraine. “Now, what would you like to order?” He pulled out a clean menu from under the bar and slid it in front of Levi. “Most people eat at a table, but the bar is fine, too. And we don’t have too many breakfast options, but there are a few appetizers on there that most—”

“B-52—or, actually no, a 252,” Levi interrupted curtly, permanently stalling his unnecessary explanation.

“I...what? You want a drink?”

“Mm,” he confirmed. “Are you not a bartender?” His tone was only barely sarcastic.

The brunet answered with a mere raised eyebrow before grabbing a shot glass and the two bottles of alcohol to mix and pour in, sliding the glass over to Levi in the same manner he’d given the menu once it was full.

Levi tipped the shot back before the glass could even still in front of him.

“Sir, with all due respect,” the bartender began, grabbing the emptied shot glass and setting it in down in the sink to wash. “Do you know what time it is?”

Levi sighed, knowing that he would probably have to explain himself if he was to receive another, albeit weaker, drink. “It’s about nine thirty, but I just got off a plane from New York, so technically my body still thinks it’s three in the morning. I’m fine to drink.” It felt like he was eighteen again, compromising with his mother and trying to avoid the tell-tale slurring he used to suffer through before he’d grown out of his lightweight years. “Just a beer for now, please. Anything on tap, doesn’t matter to me.”

Levi sipped at the new, larger glass filled with the dark golden drink once it was given, and the younger man rinsed the one in the sink and wiped down the counter with a damp rag, making conversation as he did so. “So New York, are you here on business then?”

“Honeymoon,” Levi gritted out almost immediately, on reflex alone, and set the glass back down on the bar with maybe too much force.

The bartender didn’t seem to notice his tension. “Oh! Where’s the lucky lady? Getting some more sleep I guess? Jet-lag’s a killer, so it’s pretty understandable” he went on with a wide smile, drying off the shot glass and setting it back down in the row, unknowing of his mistake.

Levi took a large swig before deciding to just answer honestly. Nobody knew him over here, and even if he spilled his embarrassing wedding account to this stranger, it wasn’t like he would ever see him after the trip was complete and he flew back home. Plus, Levi was kind of curious as to what his reaction would be, seeing as his inaccurate guess was extremely assuming.

“He left me at the altar, but a Berlin trip was too tempting to let go to waste, so here I am,” Levi quipped before taking another sip.

The man faltered, understandably. His bushy brows rose halfway to his hairline and he glanced off to the right as if there were anyone else there to share his surprise with, mouth mimicking a fish in half-formed sentences. After a few seconds of that, though, his expression hardened. “That’s a shitty thing to do. He’s not worth your time, then.”

Levi grunted noncommittally and muttered, “Yeah, tell me about it.” He was just glad the guy hadn’t made a big deal at his smooth change of pronouns.

He continued his drink in the silence that followed, beginning to feel the warmth of the alcohol from the first shot spread through his belly and up into his chest. The bartender, understanding he wasn’t needed at the moment, went back to his phone, and Levi took the time to do so himself.

There were no missed messages, but his Facebook was a bit of a mess. He tried to avoid any and all posts about the wedding, but did stop scrolling when he caught sight of a handful of photos modelling his own self, all posted by Hanji in the hours before the ceremony was to begin. There was one of him outside the church, a few in the main hall speaking with guests, and one of him at the vanity in his prep room, fingers on his tie. The person in the pictures looked much different than he was sure he looked now, with bags under his eyes and a beer in his hand. Without grief, he saved a few of them to his phone, silently promising himself that he would find that happiness again.

He was halfway through his beer when the painful drags of hunger tore through his empty stomach, and he took a quick look at the menu that still sat off to the side of him.

“Hey, this...Käse...teller thing, the cheese plate,” Levi indicated with his finger to the menu item, not sure if he was pronouncing it correctly, and the bartender nodded his understanding. “Why’s it so expensive?”

“To be fair, I wouldn’t say it’s terribly costly, but it’s a pretty big plate? It’s usually an appetizer for the table,” he explained.

“Is it possible to have half a plate, with half the cost?”

The man looked at him dubiously, as if Levi didn’t fully understand how ordering a meal worked. “No, sir, I can’t do that. There are other options that are cheaper, though.”

Levi responded with, “No, it’s fine. The cheese plate, then. Käseteller,” nearly before the other had finished speaking, not wanting to trouble the guy and not wanting to take the time to look through the menu again.

His bartender muffled a laugh as he took back the menu.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just funny, you’re not pronouncing it right, you sound so American.”

Levi pursed his lips. “Well I don’t speak German,” he muttered.

He downed the rest of his drink as his order was placed in the computer at the far end of the bar and nodded at the bartender’s silent question for another. In the wait for his admittedly odd choice of breakfast, the guy’s phone beeped in an alert, and he swore while digging into his side apron.

An orange pill bottle fumbled out of the pocket and nearly dropped onto the floor before it was caught in tanned hands and twisted open. The brunet poured a single capsule pill out onto his palm and tipped it back, swallowing it dry. He caught Levi’s eye but didn’t explain anything, and the dark-haired man had enough sense to keep his mouth shut about it.

Levi picked at the cheese and grapes once the plate was placed down in front of him, separating out the cubes of bleu cheese he didn’t realize were going to be served. The salt sticks described in the menu entry turned out to simply be stick pretzels, and he snacked on those first while he went back to his phone.

He pored over some of his more recent emails and his breakfast dwindled as he sat flicking through his apps.

“They’re legal,” the bartender said suddenly.

Levi barely glanced up. He set down his phone, took a large swallow from the glass, and answered, “I don’t care.”

The younger man took on a somewhat affronted visage as he took down the plate Levi had pushed away once the only thing left was the bleu cheese and a few wilted grapes. “I just didn’t want you going around telling my boss I’m doing drugs at work.”

“But you _are_.” His tone sounded teasing to his own ears, and Levi could only hope his deadpan stare would counteract it.

“They’re just medications,” he grumbled before thanking a server that passed by and adding the plate on top of the rest of their stack.

“I’m not gonna tell your fucking boss, do whatever you want.”

The guy scoffed out a sharp laugh. “And I pegged you to be a snitch.”

“You know nothing about me.”

“I’ve been told I’m good at reading people,” he bragged with an unabashed grin.

Levi’s lips stilled at the rim of the glass, and he raised a thin eyebrow at the bartender’s bold statement. “Yet you were wrong about me.”

“Yeah, well, who doesn’t have their flaws?”

Levi hid his own amused smile with another pull of his drink. “What’s your name, kid?” he huffed.

“Eren.”

“Well, Eren, try and remember this face,” he pointed to himself with one hand, dropping the empty glass down to the bar and pushing it away for good with the other. “Because alcohol cures heartbreak. And I’m gonna try and get shitfaced later.”

Eren blinked. “Okay then.” He paused for a beat. “Tonight later?”

Levi thought about it. It would be unlikely for him to come down for a second round that night, as he knew he’d probably be too busy curled up in bed fighting off his jet-lag to even think about dragging himself out from under the warmth of fresh sheets and drowning out his sorrows against a cold bar. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

—

He’d decided to just order up room service for both lunch and dinner after making it back up to the suite, not feeling up to traversing the foreign streets right after the exhausting flight, and he spent much of the rest of his day setting up the Wi-Fi and working through the work emails that had started coming in around midday. While he might be on a semi-vacation for the next month and a half, there was no way he would be able to go that long without working at least half the time, and these websites didn’t make themselves.

The television that hung on the wall did little to entertain him seeing as he couldn’t find any channel playing in English and he didn’t care enough to figure out how to put on subtitles, but he left it on a low volume in the background just to give a little white noise as he typed away at his computer and watched the sky grow darker and the lights in the buildings shine brighter outside the windows.

It wasn’t until a little after his dinner of a carbonara pasta dish that his phone buzzed in an incoming call, and Levi froze when he glanced over and saw Erwin’s name flash across the screen. He accepted the call on the third ring, but kept quiet, not knowing what to say that wouldn’t come out in an angry shout.

“Levi, are you there?” Erwin sounded oddly normal.

He clenched his jaw and sighed out his nose to collect himself. “I’m...yeah.”

“Where, uh, are you?”

Levi was close to answering honestly when he bit back the words, the anger continuing to pool in his gut, and instead snapped, “Where were _you_ , Erwin?” The question didn’t come out as smoothly as he wanted, his voice breaking at the end of it, and he silently cursed his shit composure.

There was silence on the other end for a long while, but Levi knew that the man had understood his question and had caught the hurt in his words that he had desperately tried to hide. He opened his mouth to spout off more of his irritation in the lingering silence just to take the attention off of it, but was cut off by Erwin’s own long sigh and his quiet, “I’m sorry. You know I’d never want to hurt you that way.”

“Bullshit.”

“It wasn’t my intention, at least.”

“Oh for fuck’s _sake_ , Erwin, are you shitting me right now? Stop with all this nonsense of trying to guilt me into forgetting my anger. I am absolutely _furious_ , and nothing will change that.”

“I know—”

“No. You don’t.” Levi paused and took a deep breath. He was going to lose it. “I thought talking to you would be better than silence, but no, I really can’t do this right now. We’re done here, don’t fucking call me again.”

Erwin made aborted noises of protest before grinding out, “You’re not at your apartment.”

“I’m in Germany.”

“What, you took the trip we were supposed to go on together?” he asked, having the gall to actually sound a little hurt about it.

“You’re fucking right I did. Don’t try and follow me up here, either,” Levi added the last comment as an afterthought, not fully trusting the blond to stay put.

“I’m not wasting my money on a lost cause.”

Levi faltered for a moment, then scoffed harshly to cover it up. His hand clenched white-knuckled on the arm of the chair he sat in. “Goodbye,” the dark-haired man uttered, pulling the phone away from his ear and ending the call before he could hear any of Erwin’s response. His hands were shaking.

If he thought Erwin was worth tears, he would have cried right then and there. Instead, he saved what he had of his work completed and shut the laptop off before standing and heading to take his second shower that day. It wasn’t his water bill, and he was going to use and abuse this privilege while he had the chance.

He stepped out of the shower exhausted, and any niggling thoughts of actually going back down to that bar and getting shitfaced that night were wiped away when he stared at the inviting covers of the bed. He needed to catch up on his sleep, now more than ever, and didn’t even wait to pull anything on other than a fresh pair of boxers before crawling underneath the blankets and sighing into the pillow.

Once he forced the worried thoughts of what that phone call meant for his future from his mind and turned to lay comfortably on his stomach, sleep came easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Oh, tschuldigung, ich wollte Sie nicht ignorieren" // "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to ignore you"


	3. An Excessive Use Of The Word Fuck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, while shorter than the others, seems to go in a lot of different directions. In the next one, though, we'll see a different side of this story

There was a text from Erwin waiting for him when he woke up.

_[Erwin:] Can we talk?_

Levi deleted their entire text conversation and rolled out of bed to make the most of his day.

—

The clouds that had hung over the city the day before had passed without shedding any rain, leaving the sun to shine down on all the locals and tourists alike as they walked the streets laden with shopping bags or dragged along unwilling children or excitable dogs.

Levi was amongst them, hands in the pockets of his grey woolen coat that ended a little above his knees because, despite the illusion of warmth from all the sunlight bearing down through the clear skies, it was still fairly cold out, a nice chilly wind breezing through the gaps between the buildings. The ends of the scarf he wore wrapped tight around his neck fluttered against his shoulders, and he held his chin dipped into the warm fabric with every brisk wind that overtook him.

Signs pointed him along in the direction of the Spree, and Levi walked along with the rest of the supposed tourists to the famous river, his stomach pleasantly full from a lunch provided by the hotel. Feeling the need to blend into the crowd, he took in the sights around him in as subtle a manner as he could, appreciating the architecture and leaning into the overwhelming sense that he was in a whole other world.

The water was choppy and quick when he reached the sidewalk path that ran along the bank of the river, and he watched as a ferry boat passed him by that was filled to the brim with gawking and pointing and smiling tourists. They all looked very happy and content, and he wondered if Erwin would have taken them on one of the ferry rides if he had been there.

Levi stopped short, earning him a muffled noise of surprise from the person walking behind him.

Fuck, he had to stop thinking like that! It was only going to cause him more grief if he continued on believing that the blond man was the best thing for him. He had thought that by deleting all their text messages between one another that it would help, that it would get rid of any evidence they were ever together, and at first it had. But he was still weak, holding on to the last shred of his ridiculous and completely unwise dependence on the other, and he hadn’t touched the man’s actual contact information. He was trying to use this time as a way to regain his own independence, and yet, the instinctive thoughts of _what would Erwin do/say/think_ for anything he came across in this godforsaken city were doing absolutely nothing but throwing him into a downward spiral, one he didn’t know if he could ever fully recover from.

He wanted to get away, wanted to distance himself, that’s why he had taken this trip in the first place, and what was he doing with it? Moping all over a gorgeous city with plenty of opportunities to enjoy the weeks he had ahead of him while giving himself a hard time and doing a shit job at preventing it.

Which was just like him, honestly.

He shook off the hindering thoughts and met the pace of the crowd once more, looking anywhere but at the ferries that cut through the water. His shoes were just as interesting.

The further along Levi trekked next to the Spree, the closer he grew to a portion of the Berlin Wall that had remained intact after all these years. It angled in from deeper within the city to span along his left-hand side not far from the edge of the water, and he pulled his gaze from the sidewalk in front of him to the countless murals adorning the once-dreadful barrier.

Levi stood with the sparse groups of people admiring the graffitied walls and taking pictures with both phones and professional cameras, keeping his distance to give others the opportunity for a closer look and standing still while strangers wove around him. He cocked his head minutely to the side and let his eyes roam over the aging structure.

The east side face of the wall had almost too much going on, murals and spray-painted words in each and every color overlapping in a clumsy yet composed manner, but it was something to look at, he supposed. Levi could imagine how it looked in the beginning, all unmarked and seemingly untouchable, a barrier whose purpose he couldn’t fathom ever being necessary. He didn’t know for sure when the wall first became a canvas for street artists, but he _was_ sure in the notion that, after it finally fell, they gravitated toward it and searched for a way to make the monument something that could be enjoyed instead of avoided.

While maybe it was something pretty to gawk at for most of the tourists present, to Levi, it kind of acted as a reminder.

—

He called his mother once he was back at the hotel and enduring the long elevator ride up to his floor. He’d spent a good half hour pacing up and down the wall and taking in the art before deciding to head back when the winds started to pick up and his enjoyable afternoon had quickly bordered on unbearable.

The call was meant to be just a quick check-in letting her know he’d been settled into the hotel and hadn’t gotten lost within the first twenty-four hours of staying in a new country, but her prying questions pulled up the previous night’s conversation with Erwin before he’d even reached the door to his room.

“I am going to call up Marla and have her chew him out,” Kuchel seethed.

“That would be completely out of line, and you know that.”

Levi shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the nearby row of hooks once he’d shut and locked the door behind him, pressing the phone between his shoulder and ear in order to roll up the cuffs of his sleeves. The room was much warmer than the temperatures outside thanks to the heat pumping through the floor vents, and his socked feet were actually more comfortable when peeled out of his boots than they had been inside them.

His mother sighed loudly on her end of the line, a soft thunder against his ear, and said, “I know. And I could never actually do that, to you or to him.”

So she still held some sort of sympathy for Erwin, Levi noted with a sense of contrition, and he had the sudden urge to repeal his earlier statement and even encourage her to call up his almost-mother-in-law just so Erwin would have to deal with his own embarrassing morality. Instead of falling even deeper into the pit he’d been ceremoniously thrown in, though, he changed the subject none too gracefully.

“Did you decide where you’ll be going for Christmas?”

When Levi had first broke the news to his mother that he would be gone the last two weeks of November and the entire month of December, she had not been happy, even if it _was_ for a romantic honeymoon for the newlyweds. She had nearly succeeded in guilting him into staying and postponing the trip for February with her questions of _“What am I to do without you for the holidays?”_ and _“Wouldn’t it be better to do it during Valentine’s and not Christmas? You know it won’t be the same without you here.”_ too, but the decision had already been made, and it was difficult to change his mind once that had occurred.

Plus, it wasn’t like Kuchel didn’t have any other family to be with on the holiday—while maybe it was family she didn’t particularly enjoy being around for more than a few hours, it was still something—so Levi had just given his mother options that didn’t include him staying home and spending the holiday week with her.

“Yes, your Aunt Huette is having me,” she said dryly, and Levi had to hold back a light laugh at the unspoken insults and complaints in his mother’s weighted words.

“Good, I’m glad you won’t be alone, and I’m sorry—”

“But you are alone, too, my dear!” she interrupted.

Levi pinched the bridge of his nose. “No it’s fine, I don’t mind it.”

“Levi.”

“Really, mom.” He didn’t want this to become a lecture. “Besides, I’m the one that flew all the way out to Germany, I should be apologizing to you.”

Kuchel hummed a reluctant agreement, then gasped in sudden excitement. “Oh, Levi! You’ll have to go to the Christmas markets while you’re there! There’s one right there where you’re staying, right in Alexanderplatz.”

“Christmas markets?”

She began to describe the multitude of vendors and booths that would line the streets on the nights before the wintry holiday selling everything from ancient handicrafts such as flax embroidery and wood or stone carvings to seasonal decorations of ornaments and delicate accessories and, of course, fruits and sausages and other local delicacies that could be washed down with hot cocoa or mulled wine. Apparently the atmosphere was drawn out of the countless strings of Christmas lights and a variety of music playing over the heads of everyone celebrating in the markets, and the ice skating rink and carriage rides available were two of the top things to experience during the market period.

When Levi asked where she’d gleamed all of this information, she admitted, “Oh I’m reading the webpage right now,” and all he could do was laugh.

—

Ordering up room service for dinner and holing himself up in his suite alone two nights in a row seemed a little depressing even for Levi, so he slipped his ankle boots back on and headed back down to the main floor to try that Spagos place for an actual meal and not a mere Käseteller.

He hadn’t planned on drinking much that night, at least not at the bar and definitely not enough to get himself drunk, but the vast array of available alcohols was a bit too tempting, and he ended up asking for a glass of cabernet once he’d been seated and the server had come to place his order. As for his meal, he settled on _Rinderfiletgeschnetzeltes an feuriger Strauchtomatensuppe_ , which was just an extremely long and over complicated way of saying he was getting beef fillets covered in some spicy tomato-based sauce.

In the wait for his dinner that was broken only by the server stopping by his table to drop off his wine, Levi glanced around the restaurant. He was seated near the back of the sea of tables that were much more filled up at the later hour than they had been the previous morning, but that didn’t stop him from gazing above the heads much taller than his own to seek out and watch the bar all the way on the other side of the room.

His bartender from yesterday, Eren, was not there. In his place was a short blonde woman who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but working with the group of middle-aged men and women who looked like they came from old money seated at the bar and chatting noisily. It was not his intentional first thought, but he had a feeling that Eren would have been much warmer with the group of difficult customers than whoever it was currently on duty.

Despite the restaurant seeming steadily busy, he didn’t have to wait long for his meal to arrive.

“Guten Abend, ah—” a familiar voice greeted, and Levi raised his head from where he’d been engrossed in a game of mobile solitaire to lock eyes with the brunet bartender he had unconsciously been looking for standing at the table with a white ceramic bowl in one hand and a small wicker basket of bread in the other, the unexpected appearance of the dark-haired man seeming to temporarily stall his movements.

Eren’s mouth halfway twisted in a crooked smile, overcoming his short hesitation with a practiced ease. “I guess I should say ‘good evening’ to you, Yankee. _Rinderfilet_?” he asked as he set the bowl down in front of Levi.

“Mm, yeah,” he confirmed, making room on the table in front of him by moving his phone off to the side and resting his hands on his thighs. He decidedly ignored the Yankee comment, instead pointing out, “I thought you were a bartender.”

“I run food too sometimes,” was the young man’s explanation. He placed the bread basket in the middle of the table even though Levi was the only occupant. “Extra cash, yanno?”

He did.

“More wine?”

Levi hadn’t even realized he’d gone through a full glass already, but he’d most likely been sipping at it mindlessly as he kept his thoughts in the present and himself entertained. It wasn’t an unusual behavior of his. “Please.”

The dish wasn’t bad. Different, but he was able to control the urge to twist his face in slight distaste of the odd sour note somewhere in the sauce after the first couple of bites. Once he began to adjust to the taste and enjoy what he’d ordered, Eren came back to the table with an unopened bottle of what he recognized as a wine completely different to the one he had previously been drinking.

“That’s not what I ordered.” He didn’t know how long the kid had been running food for, but it couldn’t have been very long if he was getting mere drinks mixed up.

The brunet didn’t pause in his ministrations of uncorking the bottle. “Oh, yeah. I know.”

Levi furrowed his brow. Or, he was just dense as fuck.

“Then what are you doing?” he snapped, covering the top of his glass when the man went to pour in the much more expensive wine.

“This one is much better,” Eren said simply, as if it was socially fucking acceptable to just change a customer’s drink order without discussing it beforehand.

“Yeah, okay, I’m sure it is,” Levi forced his slow tone, becoming more agitated at the situation by the second. “But I didn’t order that. I ordered the much cheaper cabernet.” For a reason, mind you. He still had nearly a full six weeks ahead of him, he couldn’t splurge hundreds of dollars on alcohol itself in the first couple days.

“Oh don’t worry about that. I’m still billing this under the cabernet price.”

Oh my god. This kid was a stubborn ass. After a silence fueled by Levi’s irritation and unblinking steely gaze, he slid his hand back from the top of his glass and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine, dammit.” He didn’t care enough to ask exactly _why_ , though he had a pretty strong feeling as to what the answer would be.

Eren beamed like the sun at his words before pouring in the new wine.

“You’re fucking weird.”

Instead of recoil like a sane person, Eren just laughed, as if Levi had told a mild joke and not lashed out with his sharp tongue and transparent brain-to-mouth filter. As he finished up pouring and re-corking the bottle, Eren asked, “How’re you liking Berlin?”

Levi snatched the glass off the table to take a sip before answering and was immediately grateful of the kid’s persistence in pouring him this new wine, though he gave nothing away in his expression. He felt the other had a large enough ego as it was. But damn this was, as described, much better than what he had been earlier drinking.

“It’s cold.”

“And New York isn’t?”

“It’s different cold.”

Eren laughed again and tucked the wine bottle in the crook of his arm, leaning his hip against the edge of the table. Levi eyed the movement with a quick down-then-up glance as he continued the meal that was slowly growing on him. “And you said _I_ was weird,” Eren drawled.

Levi quit responding then, wanting to get back to his quiet dinner alone and having come to the annoying conclusion that this foreign bartender-sometimes-runner was attempting to strike up conversation with him. Attempting. He did not need some persistent know-it-all who took “legal” “medications” at work trying to make nice by being all up in his personal business and turning his vacation into something awkward. Relying on silence to shoo the man away, Levi let his clearly uninterested body language speak for him.

Despite being effectively spurned, Eren pushed off from his lean against Levi’s table and began weaving through the room back to the kitchen without dropping his too-bright smile. Levi watched him leave, raising a brow when he paused at the doors of the kitchen and turned to meet his stare from across the restaurant.

Before he could even begin to mouth the question, _What?_ , Eren cupped a hand to his lips and called over the din, “Ask for me if you want another drink!” causing nearly every head in between him and Levi’s table to raise from their nice and uninterrupted meal and turn in either interest or annoyance. So, in addition to being a nosy brat, he apparently had no sense of embarrassment.

Levi very much regretted passing up room service.

—

There wasn’t a reason as to why he was there. There was an _excuse_ , sure, but not a solid _reason_. Knowing that, though, kind of only made his situation worse.

During the last couple minutes of his dinner, his phone dinged in a message notification and he hadn’t thought to check the name of before opening the app and reading it through. It’d been Erwin, pleading with him to just _talk to him dammit_ and wanting to know if there was absolutely any way they could come back from this, and before Levi had known what he was doing he’d typed back an angry retort including no less than five different variations of the word _fuck_ and one harsh _I’m done crawling back to someone who isn’t willing to change_. And, of course, that just made everything worse and damn, Levi knew that if they’d been on the phone during the conversation, he’d probably have been kicked out of the restaurant.

That was his excuse. Seeing Erwin’s name and his sad little attempts at reconciling everything between them stoked the dormant fires of Levi’s rage and heartbreak, and he needed to just forget that had actually happened.

The bar had been _right there_.

He wasn’t even slightly buzzed from the couple glasses of wine he’d enjoyed during his dinner when he’d made the decision to sit and drink the night away, so he couldn’t even blame any sort of altered state of mind. He was a fucking heavyweight for fuck’s sake, this shit was going to take a while to fully affect him.

The blonde woman who had a nearly constant unenthusiastic look to her didn’t even flinch when he’d jumped up into one of the stools (curse his lackluster genes _and_ whoever had the bright idea to make bar stools nearly four feet tall my god) and slammed his hand down in his anger.

He'd asked for three tequila shots to start with. She just lined up the glasses in front of him while he ignored the shocked stares from the old money pigs he'd sat himself next to.

And now, eight shots down and nearly thirty minutes later, he could say in certainty that he had passed up being buzzed and gone straight to drunk. Well, as certain as he _could_ be, given the circumstances. He wasn't exactly sure if he was being loud yet—he tended to do that when he grew to the worse end of being drunk—but his stoic bartender hadn't asked him to leave or cut him off yet, so he was probably more put together than he thought.

“Give me a screwdriver, but hold the fucking shitty orange juice,” he grumbled into the crook of his elbow where he'd lain his forehead against the cool glass top of the bar.

“You want me to just give you a cocktail glass full of vodka.” It wasn't a question, and if Levi had cared enough to look up from the glass he was pressing his cheek into, he expected to see her usual blank expression laid across her hooked features.

“Yes.”

There was a long pause he hadn't been expecting, so he raised his head from his arm after nearly a minute and was both surprised and not at all to see Eren standing in the other bartender’s place, standing over him with his arms crossed. Levi groaned.

“No, no, not you,” Levi declined immediately, shaking his head along with his words. “Where'd blondie go?”

“She was cut,” was Eren’s reply. His tone was different, and it took the shorter man a couple seconds to realize he was no longer wearing that ridiculous smile. “And so are you.”

Levi reared back, nearly slipping right off his stool. “What?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“I shouldn't have to repeat myself, Yankee. Cut. Abschneiden,” he said while grabbing the empty shot glasses and dumping them all in the sink to rinse. He didn't look _mad_ per se, but…

“Oi, what the fuck?”

“Annie should not have let you have eight shots within an _hour_ , let alone thirty minutes,” Eren sighed out as he went to refill the other patrons’ empty drinks. “You weren't kidding about wanting to get shitfaced.”

The last bit was muttered under his breath, but Levi heard it nonetheless, and his reaction was only somewhat less-than-polite.

“Of course, you shit. I fucking said alcohol cures fucking heartbreak, didn't I? Just let me drink in peace.”

“You understand this is still a hotel, correct? This isn't a solitary bar establishment where you can pass out on the floor and expect to be woken sometime in the morning. There are families here. I can’t allow this type of behavior.” Levi quickly took back his earlier statement, as Eren was most definitely angry. It was a refreshment from his constant “I am sunshine personified” attitude. God, he didn't even _know_ this kid and it was still a fucking refreshment. Fucking fuck.

It seemed like the brunet was waiting for an answer, glaring down at him with his arms crossed over his chest once again, his hips cocked to one side.

Levi ran a hand across his face and noticed belatedly that his skin felt faintly numb and tingly. Okay so, yeah, he was fucking drunk, but not enough to where he didn’t know what the hell was going on. _So_ close to being shitfaced. Damn Eren and his shitty bartender job that wouldn’t ‘allow for this type of behavior.’

“I know,” Levi grumbled after realizing Eren was still waiting on a response, glancing away from the brunet.

A cup of water was set down in front of him, and his pride made him hesitate for a few tense moments before he gave in to his bartender’s request and downed half of it. He didn't immediately feel any better, but it was something, he guessed.

“I'm heading upstairs,” Levi announced for no fucking reason, and he dug into his wallet and slapped more than enough notes in front of Eren before sliding off the stool and only _barely_ staggering his way out of the restaurant and toward the elevators.

Oh, he would be feeling this tomorrow.

—

The pounding in his head was what definitely woke him, though the sunlight that glared through the window which for some reason didn’t have any curtains and attacked the backs of his eyelids didn’t help in keeping him in the lovely state of unconsciousness. He groaned and threw an arm across his eyes to keep out the light as much as possible, but the pressure so close to his forehead caused the ache to spike.

Fucking _hell_.

Levi didn’t throw up. Thankfully that was one symptom of hangovers that he hadn’t ever—and _wouldn’t_ ever he surely hoped—had to suffer through. He didn’t throw up, but he _did_ feel incredibly nauseous and had no way of assuaging the churning in his gut. Sometimes he didn’t know what would be worse.

His painkillers were still sitting on the side table from when he’d first settled into the room, and he didn't even need to get out from under the warmth of the blankets to reach over, grab the bottle, and swallow two pills dry.

He felt horrible.

And, in the hazy memory of his trek up from the bar to his suite, a shower was not on the list of things he’d accomplished before passing out against the pillow in the same clothes he wore last night. Or brushing his teeth, apparently. His jeans and shirt were wrinkled and his mouth tasted fuzzy. Levi curled his lip in disgusted horror at himself.

What the _fuck_ had he been thinking last night?

Like, excluding the actual trying to get hammered at a hotel bar (honestly not the highest point in his life, he could suck it up and say that he kind of owed it to Eren for stopping him when he did even though his attitude last night told a much more offended story), he hadn’t even been able to force himself to clean up before crawling into bed and claiming unconsciousness? He hadn’t done that in, fuck, like a _decade_ , he thought he was over that stint in his life.

So, with a sighed out groan that ruffled the end of the sheet climbing up to nearly cover his mouth, he pulled himself out of the bed and toward the bathroom, squinting his eyes against the light and fighting the urge to match his steps in time with his pulsing headache.

And it was on that day, his third day in Berlin, that Levi found out his bathroom had the option for heated floors.

It didn't cure his hangover, but it sure as hell made his morning.

He made sure to shock himself out of his groggy stupor with an ice-cold start to his shower, turning the knob and raising the temperature enough to where steam began to mask the mirror and clear up his sinuses only when he began to shiver. The nausea he’d felt at the time of waking slowly dissipated halfway through raking his shampoo-coated fingers against his scalp, and the aspirin he’d taken had left his infuriating migraine at only a mild throb against his left temple.

He remembered everything _before_ he’d left for his room, which was good, since he’d never liked the feeling of a gaping hole in his memory, but it was also terribly mortifying, as that was apparently the time that he had made a fool of himself by sprawling his upper body across the bar after downing enough alcohol to put a more inexperienced man straight to sleep and nearly got himself kicked out by attempting to (loudly) argue with his bartender about cutting him off. He’d have to avoid that specific part of the hotel for a couple days if he was to ever even think about trying to go back there.

Or, fuck, maybe he should actually traverse the city and find some other bar to spend his time in. And once he did, maybe he should forego getting the bartender’s names.

That seemed to only make things worse.

—

“No, I highly fucking doubt he’s going to try and confront me here. He’s just waiting for me to come back home now,” Levi muttered, typing away on his laptop in an attempt to get this long-standing project out to his client within the next couple of hours. He’d wasted a lot of time with the unfinished documents just sitting on his desktop untouched, and if he wanted to make this deadline and not have his payment scrapped he really needed to get his ass in gear.

Hanji scoffed over the line, the sound harsher over speakerphone, and said, “He hasn’t talked to anyone else you know. Not me, Mike… and his mom isn’t saying anything to us either but I _know_ she’s gotta have finally contacted him.”

“Honestly Hanji? It doesn’t even matter to me anymore.”

There was quite a long silence following his words, which Levi filled with the rhythmic clacks of his keyboard. The client only needed two pages coded for their website, but trying to please their eccentric need to have the colors hot pink and lavender in the same space while also trying to keep the site actually readable was truly testing him and his ability to deal with idiotic people.

“Don’t say that, Levi.”

He leaned back in the chair and tore his eyes from the computer screen to stare out the windows at the tops of the buildings surrounding the hotel. “Why should I even…” he trailed off, his thoughts not completely in order. “I’ve just had to deal with so much shit from him, and I’m tired. I’m tired of it.”

Hanji said something under her breath that the speaker garbled into nonsense and then, much clearer, “I’m sorry, Levi, but I know you’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah. I always do.”

“Do something fun tonight, something that _doesn’t_ include going to a bar. See a movie or something, take your mind off this for a couple hours.”

Levi hummed, not mentioning the fact that he’d already had nearly a week spent in this city where his ultimate goal is to take his mind off the entire depressing situation and come back to New York with a clearer head and hopefully an idea of where to go and what to do next. He’d tried to get out and do shit early on in his trip by taking that walk to the Berlin Wall, but other than that he really couldn’t say he’d done anything but spend his money on booze and the recurring embarrassment that came from his abuse of it.

He frowned.

“What the fuck is wrong with me, Hanji.” He didn’t pose it as a question, his tone weary.

Perhaps trying to lighten the mood, she said, “Please be more specific, that’s too long of a list for this phone call.”

“I think I made a mistake in coming here,” he said. “I wasn’t supposed to come here just to…to what, even? What am I doing? Feeling sorry for myself? Running away and trying to get drunk every single night instead of dealing with this like an adult?” There was a pregnant pause, then, “No, yeah, it’s definitely that last one. God, that’s it, I’ve gotta go—”

“Levi.”

Hanji’s voice was hard and authoritative, a drastic contrast to her usual demeanor and one that he’d only witnessed a handful of times. Reluctantly, Levi snapped his jaw shut and glared at the phone sitting on his desk as if it was Hanji herself, hoping she could feel the heat behind his gaze from thousands of miles away through sheer willpower alone.

Taking his silence as a cue, she spoke—slowly at first, as if trying to gather her thoughts as soon as they manifested, then quicker, more determined.

“I do not claim to know everything you’re feeling right now or anything at all that’s gone on in the past week since you’ve been away. I’m not there to see it, and I’m not there to help you deal with it. But do you remember that I was there when you met Erwin?”

“What does—”

“That I was there when you needed advice on your first date, when you two met each others’ parents, when he moved to apartments closer to yours because while he wasn’t going to act out on his mom he didn’t want to be all the way over in Bushwick while you two were together. That I was there—”

“Hanji…”

“No, I think you need to hear this.”

Levi stayed quiet, his elbows resting on the table and his own entwined hands supporting the weight of his forehead. He stared down at his lap as she continued, voice softer.

“I know as well as you do how bad things got after those first couple of years. Even if you hadn’t confided in me, we all could see it. Things were so…tense, awkward? Just, anytime we all went out you could tell how uncomfortable you two were with each other, how unhappy you had turned.

“And I remember asking you, like…god, maybe four years ago, at this point, I asked you why the hell you two were still together.”

His sweatpants had a few small, wet drops on them, and Levi rubbed at his cheek, face growing red with shame though there was nobody in the hotel room to care. He wasn’t going to fucking cry, not now.

Why did a phone call from Hanji of all people elicit more emotion than anything else in the past tumultuous week?

It was quiet for a while, so long that Levi looked up to his phone still sitting atop the desk to make sure that his friend was still on the line. She was. She was waiting. “What do you expect me to say?” he asked, the tiniest waver of tears in his tone. If their situation wasn’t so uniquely depressing he was sure she would have poked fun at his display, to say how honored she was that Levi would break his mask for her.

Levi remembered that night all too well, when they had both been kept up by the college-level party that was going on in the apartment right above theirs and he was actually sitting out in the lounge instead of closing himself off inside his bedroom. Hanji had brought home leftover blondies from her work’s Christmas party that he’d helped prepare and they had stuffed their faces while watching reruns of mediocre sitcoms up until three in the morning, when the brunette had turned to him with a look that did not hide that something had been on her mind for a while and asked him, without preamble, if he was happy.

He had cried then, too.

Hanji sighed, a rustle of wind buffeting against the speaker. “You wouldn’t give me an answer then, either,” she murmured, and Levi grabbed his phone and hung up.

He ran his hands through his hair in an attempt to calm his nerves, letting out a shaky sigh as he pushed the phone as far down into his pocket as he could. There was no way he could focus on coding now, and the sharp pain that companioned the growl in his stomach only served as another reason to leave the room.

On the sixth day in Berlin, Levi went downstairs to take advantage of the all-inclusive hotel cafeteria.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rinderfiletgeschnetzeltes an feuriger Strauchtomatensuppe // Sliced fillet of beef in spicy truss tomato sauce
> 
> Abschneiden // Cut off


End file.
